I can’t believe the audacity of Labour increasing the pittance beneficiaries are paid by lifting benefits adjusted for inflation and then wanting a standing ovation for granting that pittance…
Government’s 3 percent main benefit increase: How will it affect you?
Main benefit recipients will receive a 3 percent rise on April 1 as the Government’s decision to link rates to the average wage comes into effect.
…bloody John Key raised benefits higher than Labour have!
Because the de-unionised working classes have had crumbs instead of real wage growth, they look at the welfare payment with envy and this envy is manipulated by the Right into voting resentment.
Labour are too frightened of triggering that resentment with a benefit increase and they donât have enough control over the Ministry to try and force a change of culture so we are left to cheer for pathetic increases rather than actually alleviating poverty.
If only Labour could save children in poverty with the speed they saved Concert FM.
A second term Labour led Government MUST have a purge of the neoliberal welfare complex in their first 100 day program or it will be another wasted opportunity to reform the corrupted public services that sadistically treat the most vulnerable amongst us with such contempt.
“A second term Labour-led government…”
I get that you’re a chirpy, positive wee joy-germ by nature Martyn, but you’re joking, right?
They’ve reached the epitome of political success in having the The Leader claim the front page of Time.
Job done.
Indeed why would anyone vote for more of this? Abstaining to vote as I’ll be doing this year is a form of protest and for now the only one I have. If enough people reject what they are seeing they will have no choice but to change or get used to being out the back of Parliament washing the dishes for the Nats.
This is a valid argument and I shall be doing the same myself. I’m not obliged to be part of this corrupt circus.
Vote left Sean. I’ve never voted Labour and am dubious about the Greens but always vote left. There is a solid 45% against the NZ ideal and for their mortgages.
BUT, Jacinda is HIS ‘friend’, she baby sat his daughter, she is ‘worth’ a 2nd term.
Snapped Marc resumes earlier role here
Brilliant Kheala!
That’s your best? Loser.
As a supporter of Ardern, I’m really not sure what the pathetic benefit increases are about. Why bother FFS? I mean, 3% of F/A = F/A. In a time of rising costs all around us and increasing poverty, their answer in this area is no answer at all. It’s a question not an answer.
I appreciate that you must give minimum wage workers an incentive to get out of bed. Paying a beneficiary the same ball park amount you get paid to work is no incentive to work. In election year especially, this 3% increase is an insulting epic fail and another missed opportunity.
If they were the kind caring government they say they are. Cough up the other 26 years of indexed benefit increases forgone, by previous Lab/Nat governments.
Remember the Mutha of all ‘Slash & Burn Budgets’, Ruthanasia?
Where it was deemed Beneficiaries can live on 65% of the working wage. So the question that needs to be asked is, how was the remaining 35% to be paid. Or did Beneficiaries get discounts on power, food, public transport, petrol, doctors, education, rent ect … Arrh nah!
So it looks like wokey ole NZ needs another lesson in taking it up the bum by allowing another National government in at the next election by this Labour governments ineptitude.
Bring on the Yellow Vests!
Yeah my extra $6 or so a week on JobSeeker is going to really boost my income. 6 loaves of cheap bread. It really irks me that this was considered NEWs. Talk about virtue-signalling by Sepuloni and co
Labour and NZ First do always ‘consider’ the anti beneficiary views of the silent majority, where most of their loyal voters are. So little action.
An adjustment to keep up with inflation is NOT an increase! There has been NO increase. ZERO. ZILCH. No “increase” at all!
Adjusted by the percentage the ‘average wage’ rose! Called ‘indexing’.
Indexing, adjusted percentage of average wage rises.
And to think Jacinda called Simon naive. Does she and her government think this is a winner. One labour commentator on the radio tried to put the blame on the cuts made by Ruth Richardson some 30 years ago. Surely a very very long bow.
Which would seem to suggest there’s no a lot of difference in philosophy or policy between National and Labour led govt’s? So why the hell would anyone genuinely on the left vote for that? No Socialism on offer here that I can see.
Abstaining from voting is both dumb and stupid when we know many black peoples and other ethnic groups were forbidden from voting. We also know the so called racist Maori seats were created by our colonial settler government as a means of them maintaining there power. So if the seats are racist or separatism as many say they are then the blame needs to be laid at those that created them. And saying this people here need to learn the true history of this country before they open their mouths and pass judgment.
Perhaps vote Maori Party then.
That’s fast becoming a mighty fine option – given that they’ve decided being in the tent pissing out isn’t necessarily any better than being outside the tent pissing in. And the latter is likely to be more fun
As well as a genuine, meaningful increase of benefits, as per the CPAG recommendations for lifting people out of present desperate levels of poverty, ..the GST on food and on some essential products and services also needs to be examined.
We in NZ are way out on a limb when we attach this dog-awful 15% tax to our food and other essentials. Aus and Canada, for example, have clear exemptions for basic groceries and for other essentials. Aus also has a GST of 10%, not our 15% (as enacted by mr JK). (Canada’s GST or equivalent varies by province, from 5% in some to 15 in others.)
GST Free Products and Services in Aus
GST and Food
GST- Free Food
GST Exempt Products in Canada
Agree drop GST back to 10% but the cost to a business of making certain items GST free is enormous and would not result in lower cost of fruit and veg. How would you know if you were not paying it. I shoped today and and the cost of bananas were $1 kg different between different stores. Take off GST and the difference would still be the same. Then you get into deciding where to draw the line is it just fresh food or do you include tinned food do you include drinks it just goes on
IRD run educational packages through there website all the time when ever one of the hundreds of changes or hick ups occurs every year. Adding a few more tax codes to the millions already in existence won’t be all that difficult.
where to draw the line is it just fresh food
My thought or preference would be to at least trial the GST removal on all NZ-Grown plant-based foods. …Meaning, fresh, raw product for starters. This would be helpful for many in NZ.
It would help NZ growers, it would help us keep control over the ways our food is grown in NZ – we could always check on the farm or orchard. It would encourage people to buy locally, and so reduce the toll on the climate and environment. It would help to keep children healthy (and adults of course, but especially children, who have much less choice in what they get served).
Of course if they would remove GST from all basic food, that would be excellent! But they seem so wary, so reluctant to approach it. Applying it to our own “home grown” fruit and veggies would at least be a start, and might show the powers that be that this would not be such a scary thing to do đ
Brilliant idea Kheala, love the thought of locally grown fruit and veggies with no GST. Healthier, cheaper living for us all.
Thanks, Janio.
Now if only some sensible soul in the Gov would take it up and get it through before September.
I’d have thought the Greens would have gotten something like this through by now. If they are truly “green” Greens, then this would further their cause in a whole bunch of ways. It would be relevant to our everyday lives, and they’d be appreciated every day. …Including by farmers and growers and local producers.
Agree it is a good idea but the thought of finding someone sensible in Government is like looking for a needle in a haystack. There is a long list of thinks that I would have expected the Greens to promote after so long in opposition but the list of their achievements is very small
Six dollars extra jobseeker not enough buy valuable Time magazine. Naive.
If they’d tried harder the ‘Jobseekers’ could have become PM and ended up on Time also.
I want try hard but can’t afford even food to make better person. Also can’t afford Time magazine on jobseeking
Perhaps try becoming a candidate and MP then, at least.
17% are undecided and Labour havent got anything for them.
With NZF out of the way and the Gweens designated to the Wharepaku post election, it doesnt look any better on that front neither!
At best, a hung election or just a capitulation (a loss) by more Labour ineptitude.
Also, just a quick one. If NZ’s Welfare Budget ….. current cost of all benefits $4.79b. So the Welfare Budget current is $26bn, less Superannuation $13b, leaves $8,2b. Where does that last chunk go?
Map of spend on benefits.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/119759821/benefits-to-be-boosted-10-as-government-indexes-welfare-payments-to-wage-growth
I’m on the old-age one. So it means I tighten my belt, a good thing because I’m overweight. But it’s not just about me,me,me. You put children in poverty as the worst Bomber, and remind us jonkey did more for them. Shame on this government, it’s appalling. C’mon Jacinda, Carmel, Robertson, lose those scumbag blinkers, get some real concern for the worst off in A/NZ and give them the money they need.
Andrew Becroft had the quote of the day: “If they can afford billions for infrastructure they can afford to feed our kids”, or something to that effect
Well Grant Robertsons calculous is adding up to fucking window when the minimum wage increases by double digit percentages and benefit rates increase by single digits.
But those poor kids don’t vote, at least not for now.
Benefits should NOT be adjusted beyond a correction for inflation. Raising benefits is just propping up a system that does not work. The cost of living in NZ is too high for low-income people in general (not just beneficiaries), at least partly a result of the user-pays makeover the country got in the late 80s and early 90s. Rather than increasing benefits, better to increase subsidies on visits to the doctor and dentist – that will relieve economic pressure on low-income Kiwis in the short-term, and bring longer-term benefits of improving population health.
If this government really is going to be even slightly “transformational”, it needs to roll back user-pays, rather than propping up a system that doesn’t work.
Here is another argument for raising benefits.
When the Nats dangle their tax-cuts promises for the wealthy, how much would that cost from the nation’s budget I wonder, and more specifically, where would it go. When the wealthy receive extra/ unexpected bonuses they might put it into the share market (I don’t know), or buy up one more endless property, or a boat, or a posher road vehicle, or go travelling overseas – usually flying. Etc (whatever, really.) Point being, in most cases a generous portion of the extra/ received money often goes out of the country, one way or another. So, that really is a “Cost” to the govt.
When benefits are increased to the poorest among us, that money goes straight back into their local community, immediately. It goes to the grocer, it goes to the doctor, it goes to a plumber to fix a leaky loo, to a local handyman to fix a broken window, to the auto-shop for tyres, to the local school to allow their child to go on a class trip. The money paid to beneficiaries becomes an injection of finance and economic mobility within the community and ultimately for that community. One way or another, benefits do âbenefitâ just about everyone, ultimately, who participates in that community.
Note, these are generalisations, with awareness of exceptions on both sides of the picture. Itâs just that – when a political party talk about âgivingâ tax cuts, thereâs little mention of the budget cost or who is paying for it. Yet when itâs a question of benefit increase (to bring it up to bearable) all we hear are howls of âOoooh but the cost!â Yet, again, benefit payments usually go straight back into the community while tax cuts for the wealthy often go offshore or are tied up in the property bubble. Which is the âcostâ to the nation; which is the real drain on the nationâs budget?
Really… the tax cuts don’t benifit the wealthy. They benifit hard working people and incentivise work. More people working means we can pay people who need help more. At the moment we need to get the lazy ones working… we all know who they are… we see them, some are white trash, some are gangsta wanna be Mobsters… some are just lazy islanders… we all have our useless people… every race.. now let’s make them work.
Don’t get me wrong some people need benefits I.e. solo parents etc… some people just need a kick up the arse.
I am one of your so called wealthy people. I earn 100k a year have 2 kids and rent in a poor nieghbourhood. We struggle and have no hope of getting a house in the near future. I did have to pay a bit for her dad who is overseas and got sick in a country with no public healthcare. Anyway my benificiciary neighbors have a bigger TV than me, flasher car, more kids and party often…even on weeknights. I once asked them to turn it down so my kids could sleep and they told me to f up and there were no rule in ‘their’ hood.
This is where things are crazy wrong.
I have a friend who couldn’t afford his rent. He works and so does his wife. They have 2 kids. Right now they are all living in one room with his parents trying to finally save for a house.
The other day I saw 3 mongrel mob members on a balcony of a hotel with sea views where we are placing people on benefits with nowhere to live…. I wonder why they cant fond a flat… duh.
Again this is where it is wrong.
Stop bashing people who work and say they complain and insinuating they are bad for being rich… when they worked for it…. these are the people who regardless of what % do pay the MOST tax! And subsequently your benefits.
We need to sort these problems with gangs and simple useless or lazy people with bad attitudes and help the legitimate people who do need support more. This will stop the stereotyping of beneficiaries!!! I know a few who are sick of the wrap they get because of the obvious losers letting everyone down.
That’s my rant
It was not my intention to “bash the rich” as you put it. And, absolutely not hardworking people with families, like yourself or your friend (are you even classified as “rich”?). Nor was I claiming that poorer people are somehow better, or in any way better, than those who are less poor. That is not what I was saying at all.
I do think that extreme poverty is a major problem for AO/ NZ, and that this needs to be addressed, urgently. Having a desperate ‘underclass’ is not a healthy way for any community to live, and leads to so many other social problems.
Simon Bridges has started waving “tax cuts” in front of people. There is a cynical side to that apparent offer, and it is being made without real honesty. I think he is just trying to buy votes, or to bribe his way to receiving votes at the next election, while avoiding any closer study of his actual policies or plans for NZ. (So far his policies seem to be being hidden away. He has not been up front about them at all. That does not bode well for any of us!)
My main point still stands: extra payments to really wealthy people often go offshore, and so become an actual cost to the national budget. And, conversely, increases to those who are desperately struggling usually flow straight back into their communities.
Lol I live in a poor community – Maraenui… you may have seen it on the news lately. A lot goes back to the community… in particular the pokies at the tab, fizzy and pies and chip from 4 square, drugs… some houses as busy as dairies here… cigis… and what’s left might go some decent places.
All I know is every day I drive to school and see fat kids buy a pie and coke for bfast from 4square and then walk of to school with no shoes.
My dad brought me up on a benifit. Vegas from garden, cheap meals, holidays were walking in the mountains. We grew up well. We need to fix deadshot parents not raise benefits a huge amount (but yes they need to go up…once we weed out the deadbeats).
Every one is entitled to a descent standard of living. It’s just immoral of a first world liberal democracy to allow famine to ravage vulnerable citizen.
Even if I scale it right up to the enth degree and say even pedophiles, fraudsters and murderers who fall on tough times are entitled to a descent standard of living in a first world liberal democracy.
The idea of an efficient social safety net with holes in it just isn’t effective government.
in particular the pokies at the tab
Pokies are vampire tentacles, draining what little cash there is in some communities. I’d like to see them banned, especially in small towns.
fizzy and pies and chip
Yes, junk food is another real problem in all our communities. Which is why I keep on asking for the GST to be removed from fresh fruit and veggies, at least from NZ-grown fresh fruit and veggies.
Agree with you on many points. Also I meant to reply in thread not to you so wasn’t taking a dig at you. I like your ideas on GST
Blaming the poor goes forever back, Goss. What would you do if you had no hope? Sorry for the familiarity but I went to NBHS with a Goss in the early 80s.
How would we Pakeha be if the Japanese had conquered us in WW 2 and stolen all our resources?
So you are saying Maori people make up all the poor? No… there are white people that are poor too so It is not colonization that causes people these days to be poor. Get a grip and stop blaming the past.
Utterly brilliant . Very Very well said .
What did you expect?
This is another neo liberal political party.
If they even had a whiff of true labour about them they would have instructed IRD to flip the switch and stop taxing beneficiaries.
That would have been a big signal that they thought the “Mother of all Budgets”, was a complete “Son of a Bitch!
And if you were to compare Beneficiaries with the long serving Parliamentary Beneficiaries (see below). I think its time for a ‘performance review’ criterion to be added with some baseline salaries.
Prime Minister $471,049
Deputy Prime Minister $334,734
MP’s $163,000.00
Each member of the Executive Council who is a Minister of the Crown holding 1 or more portfolios and who is a member of Cabinet $296,007
Each member of the Executive Council who is a Minister of the Crown holding 1 or more portfolios, but who is not a member of Cabinet $249,839
Here Here Denny you nailed it, just look to Wellywood if you wanna point a finger at useless bludgers who pointlessly waste tax payers funds, time those fukkers got a pay cut or shortened bye a head
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